Sweet sweet child of mine

While she's dancing with her yellow scarf, I watch her moves, how she works the room, unaware of her impact on my night.She radiates through my life, stumbles around with me on red latex high heels on unsecure streets in a city too big for us. It must be faith, nothing else would have brought us together like this. I become alive in her company, as we dress up like little girls: too dramatic, with excessive powder, extravagant make up, adapting theatrical gestures.

She just entered, not accompanied by any bright fireworks. We're melting (into each others lives), become sisters, lovers, friends, soulmates. She's kept me sane, always close, holding my hand when the day gets to complicated. She knows which words I need, I help her restless soul to calm down, dry her tears when reality blemishes her relentless skin.

”It's us against the world” she says, just as if she's discovered some new truth (because she's not old enough to know how many times those lines have been uttered before). She's just life, unspoiled, undamaged. And I have to stay close to her, just to get some of the electricity, magnetism, beauty.

Since I took my love away

You call me on Christmas eve, you're voice is altered. You say you take your medicine, that you eat properly, that you feel your body again. I can hear the others in the background, their laughter... I want to believe you, I want you to be well, to feel again. You wouldn't lie to me, would you?

The days are grey, the windows stained by too many fingerprints. Dust on the ceiling, covering the yellowed white paint. No boundaries between seasons, the 70's curtains prevents the sun beams from entering, from touching your degenerated muscles, your pale skin. I leave the tray on your bedside table, you refuse to touch the food. I'll pick it up an hour later, everything is left untouched. I don't utter a word, you just lie there with your face down on the pillow.

I'm passed the stage of crying (but the dried tears still stain my glasses) and I don't do this missing shit anymore. From now on I will be rock, hard stone. I know it's a bad fit, but I don't care. And I (want to) drink too much, it's the only thing that keeps me sane, keeps me away from the feelings. I cannot tell you anything, not a single story. I imagine that I still know you, but I'm not sure. Have I ever?

Sometimes, I try to ask if there's anything you'd like. If there is something I can do for you. Mostly I do my duty in silence. This is what is expected of me, this is what my consciousness tells me I need to do. No one objects, no one asks any questions (about what I do, what you do, how we feel). Ever. Occassionally you do get out of that bed. Sometimes after hours of screaming and tired tears from my part, sometimes after hostile silences or (pretended) tender persuasion. "I have to wash the bed linen, you can't lie in your dirt. You have to wash yourself. Let me help you. We can do it your way. Please. Don't do this to yourself (or to me)."

So I detach myself. I leave you. I take my love away (at least the destructive parts). I let you visit me every once in a while, I let you visit my heart, my body, my new life. Of course I wish for difference, for change, for you to become anew. I've left the scene, yet await that you'll be the one who returns for the last act (in this neverending drama).

When it's cold inside

City lights, speeding cars. Fast forward life. People walking like in the movies; fast fast. If I stopped right there, no one would notice. No one would hear my laughter (inside my head).Walk walk walk. One step after the other. Easy. You've done this before, haven't you?

This is what normal people do. Pick up the wallet, take out the credit card, hand it over. Get the bag, get the bag, get the bag. Sorry. Rewind. Do it again. Get the bag, thank the clerk (no looking into eyes, never), walk out. Move forward, never stop.

Eat lunch, stare out the window. People with big plastic bags passing. They smile – do they take pleasure in this? Are they laughing? At me? My hair must be weird, my acne's got worse? It must be the paleness of my skin. Bow the head. Crazy. You should have known that.

There's no leaving. No leaving alone. I adjust to the pace, start to see the stars through other's eyes. Start to see the city as conformity. Cold, cold. And I buy. I buy myself a new me (can it be exported?). I know this life is a state of emergency. I will return to sanity soon.

I see city lights, speeding cars, heavy trams. I see heights from scyscraper's rooftops. I notice the Others. I find peddlers and liquids with high percentages. I find forgiveness and oblivion. I find peace for another night. I've experienced the city's other lights, the darker shades (but I've known them before, dear old friends of mine).

Skip a beat. Skip a year. No one will notice. You've done this before, haven't you.

Serendipity

I apologize for not being beautiful. Complete. Whole. For being ruthless, strange, egoistic. For being unable to deal with life. I apologize for hurting you constantly, all over again. For having no concept of what's enough, moderate. For not understanding your benevolence, your engagement, your love. For being intact, yet leaking. For being unable to receive, yet persisently give. For being unstable, unbalanced.

I apologize for myself and that my presence is demanding. For not knowing what I want. For constantly changing, being impulsive. For making myself lonely. For being unable to understand.

I apologize for my guilt, my shame. I apologize for my jealousy, for my envy. For my low self esteem, for my varied self esteem. For not seeing my worth, my worthiness, my dignity. I apologize for being me.

This science fiction helps to numb the feelings

One one hand: Please rise above yourself, will you? Jesus Christ. Fucking unbelievable. Who are you to judge me or anyone? In what fucking position are you to tell me what I am, what I should do, who we should be? (Has it really come to this?)

On the other hand: Of course you're right. I'm a really bad person, of course you should hate me. That's the least you can do. It's not good for me to sit and view your space in cyberworld. I feel outside, excluded, feel like I don't know you anymore (still I want to so badly). I feel I have to save you from yourself (but that's not really my job is it?). I see you've regressed back to the person you once was: full of self pity, full of yourself, your feelings, your needs. It's not good for you honey. It never was. It never will be. I am.

Every letter, syllable, word. Weighed carefully. Properly. From this angle? No, you don't think so? Perhaps you are right. Yes. You are correct, I see your reasoning. I cannot do it elsewise. Still, they become deficit in my use. Close to meaningless (I'm far too skilled, have had too much training, think it through too thoroughly).

All meaning begins and ends with me. There's no emotions beyond me, no other state, no other horizon. It's the point of departure and the zone of arrival. I can't be held accountable in this universe of me.

I wanted our understandings to coincide, yet I'm taken by surprise when you autonomously conclude, interpret. I continously underestimate you; forget that we're all brought up in this self centered society. Yes, they're rendered harmless on my tongue (by me). Haven't you got that? Have I failed to tell you? Have you been fooled so easily?

So I weigh every letter, syllable, word carelessly. And you draw all the right conclusions.

Twelve o'clock and the year turns around

Me sitting in that small leather armchair with you, close. Last new years eve. Oh, how I loved you. How I tried to comfort you, telling you that me leaving wouldn't change a thing. Do you remember the time? Do you remember the smell of rubber, glass and metal (when you hit the floor months after)? And the xylophones softened the tense atmosphere, polished down your rough edges, viped away your worries, sent them into the night. Let them go, not tonight, let's not do this tonight.

You tell me I am beautiful, I just laugh and dance the night away. I can scarcely hear our music, but I do feel you (even though you aren't close at all). Someone sings that you're worth dying for, that you cannot come closer, that the minutes and hours will never suffice. I just laugh and my mind cannot imagine any endings. Closed eyes, spinning around on persian carpets. ”Doesn't miracles mean nothing at all?”

The lights over Stockholm pollutes the chilly night, the fireworks explodes the sound walls. Too many on the tiny balkony, a glass of champagne hits the icy street below. You stand behind me, you're all light, all beautiful. I cuddle up in your arms, close my eyes once again and mumble something about perhaps going to sleep soon. My warmth converts to smoke and disappears, just as my thoughts. My mind cannot predict any endings.

Home II

Pic by AS

Auxiliaries/True subversion

Of course you sit there silent/I do too. But you shouldn't/I tell myself that I lack other choices.

I find myself missing the things I thought these words do not capture/are these words more powerless than the hegemonic ones?. I find myself making distinctions where there should be none/can poetry ever be politics?. I find you taking the decisions for me/can silence ever be productive?.

Omission

Far-nesses away, and I sit on the subway in a alienated city across the Atlantic, and reflect upon your only party blouse. The colours, the shape and the time. So 80's. I think about that. And how did you feel after you bought it, there in one of the few shops on our street that actually sold clothes (although embarrassly outdated, out of fashion)? Was it happiness? Expectations for the evening? Did you think of us, the ones left back home? Or did you just feel like twenty again: free, unrestrained, careless? (There must have been moments for yourself, times when your existence did not depend upon other's gratitude or benevolence, situations that did not determine your value, that did not place you in neat categories.)

It's one of those dreadful mornings, when everything is just wrong. Your voice wakes me up, connects me to the world again (like so many times before). You sound vulnerable, your voice is sore, open and endless. The distance between us is increasing; you're not reaching out to me (and I need that in order for me to know myself). It's ages since you've used that blouse (now it's those massproduced hospital gowns, in a light shade of blue). You probably don't even remember it anymore. But I do. I remember you, and I long for the times when I can hold you in my arms like you once held me.

The shape of me to come

Something tells me that I can not continue like this (like your satellite). Feelings always get in the way, reshape and restrain me. And I find myself to be more normative than I wish to be.

Playback. Erase. Watching everything again with my inner camera. The bed, how you lie there, unknowing. I sit down beside you, pouring out those words without looking into your eyes. I rewind my feelings, can sense my body in that moment. How me and you fall apart, how there is no us from there onward. Remember your fear, the frightened gaze (I tried to avoid).

Miss arms around my shoulders, the closeness and warmth of another body in the intoxicated crowd on a Saturday night. Miss your words in my ear, your kisses on my neck, the tenderness in your touch, the silent promises of a joint day tomorrow. You gave me soul, right? Gave me pop with and for torn hearts. You gave me you in burnt software. Now all that has become me, with the difficulties of distinguishing me from painful memories. Should I have to abandon pieces that were me before we met, that has become us during all those years?

Mrs Dalloway, lifestruck

Tell me about me, she said. Just do it. Tell me whatever. And I would start with her love. I would describe the easy mornings with french baguettes and marmalade. Bread crumbs between the sheets, in her grey hair, on her moist arms. I would continue by expressing my admiration of her way of arranging the parties, her famous gatherings, where everyone felt welcome, where everyone looked their best, was their best. Because of her. I would adore the flower arrangements, the setting of the tables, the mangled stainless tablecloths. She closes her eyes, relaxes her body into yesterday, into the parties and the intoxicated atmospheres.

There was always an open book beside her bed, sentences underlined by this anachronic neon marker, which didn't fit at all into the gloomy baroque room, stains of coffee on almost all the pages. Marked by life, hit by its brutality. She would always read the morning after, that was her way of debriefing.

She said that I would be alright, no sleepless nights anymore, no morning, no pain. I know my sight is blurred. I'm lying on the mattress on the floor, in her gloomy room. I don't remember if the sun is shining, or what day it is. Letters spread all over the floor, my arms can't reach them anymore. They're stained by tears, the only thing connected to the outsiders. (She's not far away at all, she'll be coming up the stairs to rescue me. She'll break the window if needed, if she for some reason cannot get in, to the green room, to the room where my body resides.)

That's all I know, feel, see. I have ink on my hands, arms. I'm Mrs Dalloway and I'm gonna buy the flowers myself. Don't worry, dear, I can handle it, she says (I say). Then she leaves the room. She has a party to attend to, her whole life rests upon its success.